MetMuseum: August Sander

Early last year I read a review of the August Sander show at SFMoMA and was dying to see it. A call to the museum revealed that the photographs would be returning to the Sander Archive in Cologne when the show concluded and I ruled out a trip to SF when the photography department couldn't definitively tell me when the show would end. Now, People of the 20th Century has unexpectedly arrived at the Metropolitan Museum of Art here in NYC.

Peruse a selection of portraits from Sander's project, a catalog of various personalities found across Germany, and one will immediately understand why the images were deemed unacceptable by the Third Reich. Some 30+ images can be seen at the Side Collection (via coincidences). Sander cataloged some seriously odd looking Germans, far from the ideal muscular, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Aryan of Hitler's fantasy. As a result, a good portion of the series was destroyed by the Nazis.

Sander's straightforward style lends an air of objectivity to his portraits. Subjects are often square to the camera, shot full-length and staring straight into the lens. A number of commentaries on his pictures note his ability to uncover inner attitudes in his subjects. Personally, I think its more likely the viewer is projecting his own biases onto the images. Specifically, I am thinking of Anthony Lake's New Yorker review of the show. Lake focused on an image of a Hitler Youth and noted how the image demonstrated the seething hate lying within this 15 year old kid. I wish I could find a version of the shot online, but I think if Lake had stuck his finger over the swastika armband, he'd have seen the uncertain bravado of a teen Boy Scout instead.

This also brought to mind two Eric Soloman pictures I saw last summer at the Laurence Miller gallery. Solomon was an early photojournalist in Germany and these two pics were taken from the peanut gallery of the Weimar-era Reichstag. The first shows Nazi delegates protesting a speech by simultaneously holding up their newspapers as an opponent took the podium. The second shows the empty seats after these same delegates have staged a walkout. The lone Nazi remaining is Joseph Goebbels. The to-be propoganda minister calmly watches the procedings, wearing a tweed suit. In the absence of his party uniform and any identifcation of who he is, it's quite difficult to imagine what evil would spill from his mouth. We are quick to overestimate the insightfulness of photographs.

Through Sept 19th at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
1000 Fifth Avenue at 82nd Street
212-535-7710